Creating Steam In 3ds Max?

Playdo

Hi. What would be the best way to create realistic steam in 3ds Max for a still render?

Eric Chadwick

It's a still, so I'd paint it.

If you suck at painting,
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&q=particle+tutorial+max+smoke

r_fletch_r

You should be able to get a photo/video of steam and smoke 'on black'. compositors use them a lot in live action shots. Just bung the video into the opacity channel of your material. Also you can plug it into a displacement mofidier on a subdivided plane for some interesting effects.

http://www.detonationfilms.com/DV_DustAndSmoke.html

Mark Dygert

If you're interested in creating your own steam and smoke effects, Allen McKay has some good video tutorials available. Creating your own with particles can sometimes give you exactly what you need, you can also render it out and use it like fletch described.

If you really want some great smoke, steam, fire, cloud effects check out FumeFx.

frubes

krakatoa, afterburn and fume fx as vig mentioned are what you need if you want to create custom smoke and particle fx. Theres plenty of tutorials out there on how to go about it once you get one of those products. Basically you need some sort of volumetric rendering system.

Playdo

I'll check them out. Good idea to use steam on a black background and add it in post.

Initially I was going to look into particle effects. Would this be best used with volumetric lighting?